together.........................

In the journey to the light,
the dark moments
should not threaten.
Belief
requires
that you hold steady.
Bend, if you will,
with the wind.
The tree is your teacher,
roots at once
more firm
from experience
in the soil
made fragile.

Your gentle dew will come
and a stirring
of power
to go on
towards the space
of sharing.

In the misery of the I,
in rage,
it is easy to cry out
against all others
but to weaken
is to die
in the misery of knowing
the journey abandoned
towards the sharing
of all human hope
and cries
is the loss
of all we know
of the divine
reclaimed
for our shared
humanity.
Hold firm.
Take care.
Come home
together.

-Michael D. Higgins,  Take Care

It's hard to get enough of........................

................................Charlie Munger. 

If you have to have enemies....................

 ..................................Doomers are my sworn enemies.

Sounds like.......................

 ................................heaven on earth:

Conversation with real people replaces an imaginary life on social media.

People care about what you have to say and are generally interested in hearing different viewpoints without considering you an enemy of the state. Rather than using the pretense of listening as an excuse for what they will opine about next, their questions are sincere and thoughtful.

As mantras go..................................

 ...............................................ouch.

A radical notion........................

.................................. face-to-face.

But tell us how you really feel................

 Perdition, thy name is entitlement. If I were forced to conjure up a single human characteristic lurking out there on the down low likely to be responsible for a societal implosion in the next few years, it just might be entitlement. The number of endlessly entitled and simultaneously clueless individuals out in the world is just stunning. I know that correlation is not causation, but, sweet Jesus Palomino, these two things sure do seem joined at the hip to me.

-Martin Hackworth, from here

It's an election year.....................

....................so all bets are off:

 The Federal Reserve declared victory today, projecting a soft landing as its base case in the years ahead, with more cuts in short-term rates, and with inflation gradually getting back to its 2.0% goal without a recession.  Unfortunately, we think the Fed is declaring mission accomplished too early.

Brian Wesbury, from here

divided...................

 Perhaps absolute power, of the kind it enjoyed after the Cold War, corrupted absolutely. Whatever the cause, the United States is now sharply, militantly divided over the question of whether it even wants to be a Western country. 

-Christopher Caldwell, as cut-and-pasted from here

Thinking about...........................

 .........................................."I thinks"

ability......................

 The deadliest flaw in human nature is the ability to hold an unshakable opinion based on inadequate evidence.

-anonymous/unknown, but found here

Showing up.......................

 .............................on Kurt's radar is an honor.

People just don't.........................

 ..................talk that way anymore:

Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. What is the right use? What is the one end, which all means go to effect? They are for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book, than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system. The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul. This every man is entitled to; this every man contains within him, although, in almost all men, obstructed, and as yet unborn. The soul active sees absolute truth; and utters truth, or creates. In this action, it is genius; not the privilege of here and there a favorite, but the sound estate of every man. In its essence, it is progressive. The book, the college, the school of art, the institution of any kind, stop with some past utterance of genius. This is good, say they, - let us hold by this. They pin me down. They look backward and not forward. But genius looks forward: the eyes of man are set in his forehead, not in his hindhead: man hopes: genius creates.  Whatever talents may be, if the man create not, the pure efflux of the Deity is not his; - cinders and smoke there may be, but not yet flame. There are creative manners, there are creative actions, and creative words; manners, actions, words, that is, indicative of no custom or authority, but springing spontaneous from the mind's own sense of good and fair.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson, as excerpted from The American Scholar

the weary world rejoices.............

Jennifer Nettles............O Holy Night/Hallelujah

 

We don't often quote Richard Nixon.....

 ...................but perhaps we should:

The unhappiest people of the world are those in the international watering places like the South Coast of France, and Newport, and Palm Springs, and Palm Beach.  Going to parties every night. Playing golf every afternoon.  Drinking too much.  Talking too much.  Thinking too little.  Retired.  No purpose

      So while there are those that would totally disagree with this and say, "Gee, if I could just be a millionaire! That would be the most wonderful thing."  If I could just not have to work every day, if I could just be out fishing or hunting or playing golf or traveling, that would be the most wonderful life in the world—they don't know life.  Because what makes life mean something is purpose.  A goal.  The battle, the struggle—even if you don't win it.

-Richard Nixon, as quoted here

lingerable.............................

 I know a couple who treasure friends who are what they call "lingerable."  They are the sort of people you want to linger with at the table after a meal or in chairs outside the pool, to let things flow, to let the relationship emerge.  It's a great talent—to be someone others consider lingerable.

-David Brooks,  How To Know a Person:  The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen

life its ownself.........................

 Sometimes you can learn more about a person by watching how they talk to a waiter than by asking some profound question about their philosophy of life.

-David Brooks, How To Know a Person:  The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen

times..........................

 This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson, as culled from his 1837 speech, The American Scholar

Inadvertently.................ah, history

 Deprived of French help, on December 28, 1783, the Turks officially acknowledged the loss of the Crimea.  Exclaimed on observer, "The Russian state has spread out like ancient Rome."  Indeed, Catherine's swollen dominions now stood larger that the entire Roman Empire at its height.

     But there was a price to be paid for this brash expansion.  For one thing, Catherine's actions had inadvertently opened the wounds of religious wars that would one day cross borders and carry over into a new age.  For another, the Crimea remained a boiling stew of biases, prejudices, and fierce hatreds.  In the years that followed, while annexation was one thing, actually extending Russian control over the region remained an exasperating business.  Russian forays into the area known as the Caucasus were especially riddled with troubles—in 1785 a rebellion broke out among a deadly mix of Chechens, Avars, and other tribes.  Descending down from the mountains, a shadowy leader wrapped in a green cloak and espousing a mystical version of Islam proclaimed a Ghazavat, or holy war, against the Russians.  With dauntless flair and lightning strikes, this self-anointed "Sheik Mansur" led a coalition of mountain tribesmen that harassed and tormented the Russians with guerrilla warfare, laying the seeds for a conflict that still sputters today.

-Jay Winik, The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800

August Burns Red........................Carol of the Bells

Let the Christmas season...........................

 ...................................officially begin.

Ideas that spread..............................

 ........................................win.

There is such a thing..................

 .............................as sacred idleness.

We must be part of the same...............

 ............................................generation.

resilient.....................

 Nothing can become truly resilient when everything goes right.

-Tobias Lutke

The upside of stress..................

      Stress focuses your attention in ways good times can't.  It kills procrastination and indecision, taking what you need to get done and shoving it so close to your face that you have no choice but to pursue it, right now and to the best of your ability.

-Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

Patience Grasshopper........................

 A good summary of investing history is that stocks [and real estate] pay a fortune in the long run but seek punitive damages when you demand to be paid sooner. . . . there's a "most convenient" investing time horizon—probably somewhere around ten years or more.  That's the period in which markets nearly always reward your patience.  The more your time horizon compresses, the more you rely on luck and tempt ruin.

-Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

inevitable desire....................

 The greatest impediment to creativity is your impatience, the almost inevitable desire to hurry up the process, express something, and make a splash.

-Robert Greene

Fifty years ago...........................

.................................A Motown Christmas album

 

a paradox.................

 The popular adage "use it or lose it" doesn't go far enough.  If you don't use it, you might never gain it in the first place. 

. . . a light bulb went off for me.  Comfort in learning is a paradox.  You can't become truly comfortable with a skill until you've practiced it enough to master it.  But practicing it before you master it is uncomfortable, so you often avoid it.  Accelerated learning requires a second form of courage: being brave enough to use your knowledge as you acquire it.

-Adam Grant, Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things

Just some random cartoons.............

 

An ode to peanut butter..............

Last spring, from Switzerland, I was moved to repay the debt I have felt to peanut butter.  "I have never composed poetry [I wrote in my syndicated column], but if I did, my very first couplet would be:

            "'I know that I shall never see

            A poem as lovely as Skippy's Peanut Butter.'" 

     My addiction is lifelong, and total.  I reminisced.  "I was hardened very young to the skeptics.  When I was twelve, I was packed off to a British boarding school by my father, who dispatched every fortnight a survival package comprising a case of grapefruit and a large jar of peanut butter.  I offered to share my tuck with the boys who shared my table.  They grabbed instinctively for the grapefruit—but one after another actually spit out the peanut butter, which they had never before seen and which only that very year (1938) had become available for sale in London, at a store that specialized in exotic foods,  No wonder they needed American help to win the war."

-William F. Buckley, Jr., Overdrive: A Personal Documentary

a fairly harsh judgment.......

 . . . he concludes that one of the principles of contemporary management is to "push details down and pull credit up."  That is, avoid making decisions, because they could damage your career, but then spin cover stories after that fact that interpret positive outcomes to your credit.

-Matthew B. Crawford,  Shop Class as Soul Craft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work

by-product......................

      The truth, of course, is that creativity is a by-product of mastery of the sort that is cultivated by long practice.  It seems to be built up through submission (think of a musician practicing scales, or Einstein learning tensor algebra).  Identifying creativity with freedom harmonizes quite well with the culture of the new capitalism, in which the imperative of flexibility precludes dwelling in any task long enough to develop real competence.  Such competence is the condition not only for genuine creativity but for economic independence such as the tradesman enjoys.

--Matthew B. Crawford,  Shop Class as Soul Craft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work

hey, that's my generation................

 . . . the liberationist ethic of what is sometimes called "the 1968 generation" perhaps paved the way for our increasing dependence.  We're primed to respond to any invocation of the aesthetics of individuality.  The rhetoric of freedom pleases our ears.  The simulacrum of independent thought and action that goes by the name of "creativity" trips easily off the tongues of spokespeople for the corporate counterculture, and if we're not paying attention such usage might influence our career plans.  The term invokes our powerful tendency to narcissism, and in doing so greases the skids into work that is not what we had hoped.

-Matthew B. Crawford,  Shop Class as Soul Craft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work

Chaplin......................

I stood where Sennett could see me.  He was standing with Mabel, looking into a hotel lobby set, biting the end of a cigar.  "We need some gags here," he said, then turned to me, "Put on a comedy make-up.  Anything will do."

     I had no idea what make-up to put on.  I did not like my getup as the press reporter.  However, on the way to the wardrobe I thought I would dress in baggy pants, big shoes, a cane and a derby hat.  I wanted everything a contradiction:  the pants baggy, the coat tight, the hat small and the shoes large.  I was undecided whether to look old or young, but remembering Sennett had expected me to be a much older man, I added a small mustache, which, I reasoned, would add age without hiding my expression.

     I had no idea of the character.  But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the make-up made me feel the person he was.  I began to know him, and by the time I walked onto the stage he was fully born.  When I confronted Sennett I assumed the character and strutted about, swinging my can and parading before him.  Gags and comedy ideas went racing through my head.

     The secret of Mack Sennett's success was his enthusiasm.  He was a great audience and laughed genuinely at what he thought was funny.  He stood and giggled until his body began to shake.  This encouraged me and I began to explain the character: "You know this fellow is many-sided, a tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure.  He would have you believe he is a scientist, a musician, a duke, a polo player.  However, he is not above picking up cigarette butts or robbing a baby of its candy.  And, of course, if the occasion warranted it, he will kick a lady in the rear—but only in extreme anger!"

-Charles Chaplin, My Autobiography

     

a funny thing............................

 It's a funny thing about the [New York] Times: I don't know anybody who works for it who doesn't have a sense of humor (the big exception: John Oakes.  But then he retired as editorial page director several years ago, and is understandably melancholy about having to live in a world whose shape is substantially of his own making). Abe Rosenthal, the working head of the newspaper, is one of the funniest men living.  Punch Sulzberger is wonderfully amusing, and easily amused.  And so on.  But there is some corporate something that keeps the Times from smiling at itself; don't quite know what.

-William F. Buckley, Jr., Overdrive: A Personal Documentary (1981)

gaps.........................

       I've seen many people shy away from writing because it doesn't come naturally to them.  What they overlook is that writing is more than a vehicle for communicating—it is a tool for learning.  Writing exposes gaps in your knowledge and logic.  It pushes you to articulate assumptions and consider counterarguments.  Unclear writing is a sign of unclear thinking.  Or as Steve [Martin] himself quipped, "Some people have a way with words, and other people, uh . . . oh, not have a way."

-Adam Grant, Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things

Good question.....................

 When I thought back on past expedition experiences, it was clear to me that I had always drawn much of my motivation and resilience from those around me.  It was often the knowledge that I couldn't let my team down that drove me forwards when times were tough.  Now that I was to be alone, what would stop me giving up?

-Felicity Aston, Alone In Antarctica  

story telling....................

Every investment price, every market valuation, is just a number from today multiplied by a story about tomorrow.

-Morgan Housel, Same as Ever 

working overtime..................

  more fun here

Both...............................?

I wasn't sure what worried me more; skiing 1,700 kilometers or spending two months alone. 

-Felicity Aston, Alone In Antarctica

thanks David

differently............................

      The first step toward accepting that some things don't compute is realizing that the reason we have innovation and advancements is because we are fortunate to have people in this world whose minds work differently from ours.

      It would be great if the world worked in predictable, rational ways.  But constant uncertainty, misunderstanding, and the inability to know what people will do next is the truth.

-Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

The need....................

 The need for certainty is the greatest disease the mind faces.

-attributed to Robert Greene

I consider myself..........................

 .........................................privileged.   I suspect Greg Mankiw would concur.

Ah, tradition.......................

 Of course, I have noticed that what I think does not control the workings of the universe, doubtless a cosmic oversight of some sort. Still, it might be a good idea to think things through before undertaking them. Granted, this would be a break with tradition, but a little adventure spices up life.

-Fred Reed

Frugal versus..............................

 ..........................................independent.

the great escape................

via

A national treasure passes.................

  ................We were blessed to have him around for as long as we did.

Re-visiting.......................

 ..............................Gaping Void:

Fifty years ago.......................

The Who...............The album Quadrophenia released

 

Checking in...........................

 ...............with Joseph Heller's Catch-22:

Insanity is contagious.

it was neither possible nor necessary to educate people who never questioned anything.

Morale was deteriorating and it was all Yossarian's fault. The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them.

There was no telling what people might find out once they felt free to ask whatever questions they wanted to.

Major Major had been born too late and too mediocre. Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three. Even among men lacking all distinction he inevitably stood out as a man lacking more distinction than all the rest, and people who met him were always impressed by how unimpressive he was.

He was a self-made man who owed his lack of success to nobody.

Clevinger had a mind, and Lieutenant Scheisskoph had noticed that people with minds tended to get pretty smart at times.

The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he is on.

History did not demand Yossarian's premature demise, justice could be satisfied without it, progress did not hinge upon it, victory did not depend on it. That men would die was a matter of necessity; WHICH men would die, though, was a matter of circumstance, and Yossarian was willing to be the victim of anything but circumstance. But that was war. Just about all he could find in its favor was that it paid well and liberated children from the pernicious influence of their parents.

He was going to live forever, or die in the attempt.

Now you've given them hope, and they're unhappy. So the blame is all yours.

“From now on I'm thinking only of me."  Major Danby replied indulgently with a superior smile: "But, Yossarian, suppose everyone felt that way."  "Then," said Yossarian, "I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?”

a hierarchy..................................

  I read about the duties of the Policy Review Board I am asked to join.  It "serves a critical function in this work.  The Board, consisting of leading citizens with many different backgrounds, philosophies, and experiences, functions to guarantee the objectivity of the Public Agenda's work.  Board members review Public Agenda projects, publications, and other material to insure that they are free of ideological bias, that they are balanced and thoughtful, and that they represent the highest level of analysis and research."  Prose like that gags, doesn't it?  I mean, if leading citizens with different backgrounds, philosophies, and experiences guarantee objectivity, they why isn't the United Nations objective?  And are we sure we want to be free of ideological bias?  Isn't a hierarchy of values valuable?

-William F. Buckley, Jr., Overdrive: A Personal Documentary

One of the great tragedies.......................

....................of our current society is that conversations like this just don't happen anymore.  Watch as William Buckley sorts out, in response to a question from Huey Newton, what side he might have been on in 1776.  Firing Line was special.   Money quote from Huey: "one of my principles is contradiction is the ruling principle of the Universe."  Enjoy.

 

On youth......................

The only quality of youth I covet is their health, not their age; life is wonderful, but the thought of reliving it is altogether repelling; spiritually, and even biologically, exhausting.  When the character in Catch 22 said he intended to live forever or die trying, I sensed an exalted fatalism, nicely captured by the easy superficiality of the biological paradox.

-William F. Buckley, Jr., Overdrive: A Personal Documentary

time passage.....................

      General Dreedle had thrown open Colonel Cathcart's private skeet-shooting range to every officer and enlisted man in the group on combat duty.  General Dreedle wanted his men to spend as much time out on the skeet-shooting range as the facilities and their flight schedules would allow.  Shooting skeet eight hours a month was excellent training for them.  It trained them to shoot skeet.

     Dunbar loved shooting skeet because he hated every minute of it and the time passed so slowly.  He figured out that a single hour on the skeet-shooting range with people like Havermeyer and Appleby could be worth as much as eleven-times-seventeen years.

-Joseph Heller, Catch-22

In case I needed it.....................

 ...........................more proof I'm getting old.  Younger investors and real estate agents are bemoaning the "high" current mortgage rates.  For half of our career, we would have been thrilled with this sort of rate:

A little context:

Fifty years ago.............................

    War............................................Cisco Kid

 

Uh-oh......................

 As blogger Tim Urban describes it, your brain gets hijacked by an instant gratification monkey, who picks what's easy and fun over the hard work that needs to be done. . . . 

     Many people associate procrastination with laziness.  But psychologists find that procrastination is not a time management problem—it's an emotional management problem.  When you procrastinate, you're not avoiding effort.  You're avoiding the unpleasant feelings that the activity stirs up.  Sooner or later, though, you realize that you're also avoiding getting where you want to go.

-Adam Grant, Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things

Even though he is a .........................

 .....................Wolverine fan (or maybe because he is one), Rob Firchau is a treasure.

A very good question.......................

 ............if the underlying assumptions are correct.  While truly not having a clue, I'm going to hypothesize that governmental re-regulation plays a considerable role. 

    via

no guarantees.......................

"Best time of the day to be out there, though.  You wake up before the sun, see a new day unfold right in front of you on the water.  Ain't none of us guaranteed another hour of living, don't care who you are or how much you got.  Might as well get up early and enjoy what time you got left, I say."

-David Baldacci, The Edge

a never-ending chain............

      If you've relied on data and logic alone to make sense of the economy, you'd have been confused for a hundred years straight.

     Economist Per Bylund once noted: "The concept of economic value is easy: whatever someone wants has value, regardless of the reason (if any)."

     Not utility, not profits—just whether people want it or not, for any reason.  So much of what happens in the economy is rooted in emotions, which can, at times, be nearly impossible to make sense of. . . .

     The danger, one you see often in investing, is when people become too McNamara-like—so obsessed with data and so confident in their models that they leave no room for error or surprise.  No room for things to be crazy, dumb, unexplainable, and to remain that way for a long time.  Always asking, "Why is this happening?" and expecting there to be a rational answer.  Or worse, always mistaking what happened for what you think should have happened.

     The ones who thrive long term are those who understand the real world is a never-ending chain of absurdity, confusion, messy relationships, and imperfect people.

-Morgan Housel, as excerpted from Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

It's a subjective world...............

 "Well-being depends less on objective events than on how those events are perceived, dealt with, and shared with others."  This subjective layer is what we want to focus on in our quest to know other people.  The crucial question is not "What happened to this person?" or "What are the items on their resume?"  Instead we should ask: "How does this person interpret what happened? How does this person see things?  How do they construct their reality?"  This is what we really want to know if we want to understand another person.

     An extrovert walks into a party and sees a different room then an introvert does.  A person who has been trained as an interior designer sees a different room than someone who's been trained as a security specialist.

-David Brooks,  How To Know A Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen

Creationism...........................

 Your mind creates a world, with beauty and ugliness, excitement, tedium, friends, and enemies, and you live within that construction.  People don't see the world with their eyes, they see it with their entire life.

     Cognitive scientists call this view of the human person "constructionism."  Constructionism is the recognition, backed up by the last half century of brain research, that people don't passively take in reality.  Each person actively constructs their own perception of reality.  That's not to say there is not an objective reality out there.  It's to say that we have only subjective access to it.

-David Brooks, How To Know A Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen

The best you can do............

 Unfortunately, there are many variables outside of your control when it comes to investing.

You can’t control the timing or magnitude of returns the markets offer. You also don’t control interest rates or inflation or economic growth or tax rates or the labor market or the actions of the Fed and politicians.

Life would be easier if you did but no one said life is easy.

The best you can do is focus on what you can control — your behavior, your savings rate, your asset allocation, your costs, your time horizon — and play the hand you’re dealt.

-Ben Carlson, as he concludes this post

Pensieri.........................

 

much more from Nicholas Bate here

Tomorrow ......................?

 

On this day in 1920...............

.....................The Mark of Zorro, with Douglas Fairbanks as our hero, was released in New York.

 

Something you don't see everyday..........

 ................someone praising social media:

Over the last six weeks, legacy media has given me literal Hamas propaganda, quite proudly, on the front page, over and over again. And now we all know it. Which makes the legacy media very mad indeed. The screaming and thrashing about social media are the old world’s death throes. Don’t get me wrong; social media is a mess. Twitter?! It’s vile. It’s full of offensive lies and just offensive reality. It’s vile because the world contains vile things and people are monstrous and weird. I see images I shouldn’t. I see hedgehogs who seem too tame (is that legal?). I see Susan Sarandon retweeting MAGA accounts in ways that trouble my sleep. And yet. I would take the mess over my apportioned journalism-school-Hamas-propaganda-oatmeal any day. God bless this mess. I’m grateful for social media.

In the background...........................

The Rippingtons/Welcome To The St. James Club album

types........................

      Two days now Matt Sabre had been marshal of Painted Rock.  Yet the job was not new to him, for he had been marshal before in other towns.  And this town was no different.  Even the faces were the same.  It was strange, he thought, how little difference there was in people.  When one traveled, got around to many towns, one soon realized there were just so many types, and one found them in every town.  Names were different, and expressions, but it was like many casts playing the same roles in a drama.  The parts remained the same, only the names of the cast had changed.

-Louis L'Amour, from his short story The Marshal of Painted Rock

by design........................

 It seems to be our liberal political instincts that push us in this direction of centralizing authority: we distrust authority in the hands of individuals.  With its reverence for neutral process, liberalism is, by design, a politics of irresponsibility.

-Matthew B. Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work

On thinking versus doing..............

 . . . the twentieth century saw concerted efforts to separate thinking from doing.  Those efforts achieved a good deal of success in ordering our economic life, and it is this success that perhaps explains the plausibility the distinction now enjoys.  Yet to call this "success" is deeply perverse, for wherever the separation of thinking from doing has been achieved, it has been responsible for the degradation of work.

-Matthew B. Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work

part of the disciplinary process.....................

      The habituation of workers to the assembly line was thus perhaps made easier by another innovation of the early twentieth century: consumer debt. . . . One symptom Lears points to is a 1907 book with the immodest title The New Basis of Civilization, by Simon Nelson Patten, in which the moral valence of debt and spending is reversed, and the multiplication of wants become not a sign of dangerous corruption but part of the civilizing process.  That is, part of the disciplinary process.  As Lears writes, "Indebtedness could discipline workers, keeping them a routinized jobs in factories and offices, graying but in harness, meeting payments regularly."

-Matthew B. Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work

Opening paragraphs....................

      Passenger train travel was not known to be particularly dangerous, especially in Europe where the machines soared like the wind on rigorously sculpted rails that translated to silky smooth rides.  There were many departures a day between Geneva and Milan operated by several railway companies; one could travel early in the morning or later at night.  The trains ran at a maximum speed of two hundred kilometers per hour, while their passengers napped, worked, binged shows on streaming platforms, or ate and drank in considerable comfort.  This particular ride was a bullet-nosed silver Astoro tilt train operated by Trenitalia.   None of the hundred-plus passengers was contemplating dying today.

      Except for one.

-David Baldacci, The Edge

A Licking County tradition.......................

...............................on the Friday after Thanksgiving:  the Christmas lighting of the County Courthouse:

Good looking building even without the lights

Santa getting ready to hit the switch

All lit up for the season

A Large Regular resurrected .................

....................a poster for the historic WKRP Turkey Drop. Here is how it played out:

 

A proclamation...............................

 A Proclamation

 

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor—and Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their Joint Committee requested me "to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness."

 

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be—That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks—for his kind care and protection of the People of this country previous to their becoming a Nation—for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war—for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed—for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

 

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions—to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually—to render our national government a blessing to all the People, by constantly being a government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed--to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shown kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord—To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and Us—and generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

 

Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

 

Go. Washington

A time for family.....................

..............expecting 27.  A degree in space planning would have been useful, but it looks like all will fit in the dining room.  More food has been prepared that you can shake a stick at.  Good thing we all appreciate the leftovers.

As rules go...................

.................this is a mighty fine list;

10. Thou shalt be thankful. You're above ground and functioning in an extraordinary place at an extraordinary time. Many people paid a very heavy price (and I'm not talking about groceries) to give you this day. Take some time to think of them and to express gratitude to your friends and relatives. Above all, give special thanks to the divine power who blesses you in innumerable ways.

Highly recommended.................

 

Avoiding regret is a key component to life satisfaction.

Good judgment is expensive, but poor judgement will cost you a fortune.

Most errors in judgment happen when we don't know we're supposed to be exercising judgment.

The key to getting what you want out of life is to  identify how the world works and to align yourself with it.

But being wise requires more.  It's more than knowing how to get what you want.  It's also knowing which things are worth wanting—which things really matter.